Whole30 – Back Again

Dec 31, 2016

Whole30 back again
Check its records let’s begin
Party on party people let me hear some noise
W30’s in the house jump jump rejoice
There’s a party over here
A party over there
Wave your hands in the air
Shake your derriere
These three words when you’re gettin’ busy
Whoomp there it is
Hit me

Well – this girls dietary habits have been all willy-nilly since our spring BWCA trip when everything went to hell. In the back-country I was eating gluten every day, and hardly turned back since then.

Its been like a bulldozer of culinary Standard American Diet (SAD) over here and my body has definitely taken notice! For me – eating Paleo is bliss and completely eliminates weird sneaky symptoms that I won’t bore you with right now. Of course its hard to get over the hump of the “I want to kill all the things“, but once you do, and I did – GOLDEN!

w30-timeline

For many people Whole30/eating Paleo can be expensive. The meat alone is enough to turn most people away, but I’m a lucky girl. We butcher our own pasture raised chickens, my husband got a deer this year, and we bought 1/4 of a cow, and 1/2 a hog at the beginning of December. While I won’t have that weekly expense – we still had to pay for it albeit much lower than grocery stores, but at top notch quality, and humane raising and butchering. #WinningAllAround

I start this adventure in eating and culinary bliss on Sunday! I know – a weird day to start anything, but last time I started on a Friday, and that’s kind of weird too. Today I hauled my butt to the grocery store(s) to stock up on a few groceries for the week.

We are hosting an NYE party at our house tonight so I wanted to have all of my ingredients needed for my first W30 breakfast rip-roaring-ready to go.

Here are a few of my favorite commercially prepared items I scored!

w30prep

Goals this time around:

1.) Finish – Okay – duh… but what I mean by that – is there is an awful tendency with round 2 Whole30ers bending the rules. I am determited NOT to be one of those people. My husband fully renovated our kitchen, I got a gorgeous new cutting board from Williams Sonoma, an Instant Pot, and a new kick ass Calphalon pan… So my goal is to stay on track, don’t cheat, don’t make exceptions, and finish again!

2.) Not going to take initial stats/measurement. This time around – weight loss isn’t a goal of mine. I just want to feel the best I can, and know I’m preparing healthy full rounded meals.

3.) I really REALLY want to do a Whole60, or at a minimum a Whole45 this time around – that is my BHAG (big harry audacious goal)… but we will see. I have two winter camping trips, and we all know what happened last time I went camping right after my last Whole30….

4.) Learn and experiment with some sustainable meals – that I CAN eat out in the back-country.

So that’s it. Short and sweet. I’m sure I’ll post next week on how the first week went. Happy New Year!

~ Until next time.

where feet may fail – revisited…

Dec 22, 2016

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! This day ~ these past three years have been bitter – but always end up with a sweet lining. I often fret, and worry about this day – leading up to it… You see… today is not only my birthday – but also my Dads…

I swear… I was the luckiest gal to see the Outcry tour with my great friend Vanessa last April 2016. We saw Elevation Worship, Jesus Culture, Kari Jobe, and… Hillsong United LIVE – front – row. Yes – Taya Smith in all of her God given vocal glory – belting out Oceans, literally 50 feet from me.

To say that wasn’t a moving experience…. well – there are just no words…

I’ve now been reviewing these lyrics on a near daily observance since 2013, and…

I thought it would be good to review this song once again – especially since it holds such anchors in my life, and within my own story.

By now, you know the story,and if you need a little history lesson you can always rewind, and take a peak here.

The lyrics of Oceans are still playing out wildly in my life. God never fails. I can say this with assurance. Though He doesn’t always play the chords I expect, the notes he chooses are always right, and always deliberate.

{I Invite you to hit play and listen to this song for the rest of the post}

Sometimes this is hard to swallow.

I often grow and birth such an anxiety about today… worrying relentlessly that my dad is not here to celebrate with me…

I know he is in a better place, but I long to see him. Though intellectually I know he is in a far better place, I want him here. Everything you LOVED about Zeek, you loved about my dad.. If there was ever a TV show about MY family ~ it WAS Parenthood, and my dad WAS Zeek. He was the bedrock of our family… our Zeek to our Parenthood.

He was my anchor – here in the flesh – here on earth.

But I realized today that I need to trust God in this area of my life too. I never saw it before – but right now – right here, he is asking me to get out of the boat, and I’ve been terrified like the other disciples, and stayed put.

Several days leading up to today leave me wondering, and drunk with fear on how am I going to get through today… but.I.always.do. I need to capture these thoughts of anxiety, because today – I realized these feelings of fear and anxiety are not from God.

Today – when things went amazingly well – I realized I can be Peter. I can get out of the boat, and walk on water too. Because Jesus is here right with me. Right now – during these times. God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity (2 Timothy 1:7).

Today I renew my prayer.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

Lord – I trust in you – that I can and DO still have a happy birthday. Thank you for those people that you’ve placed around me – that hold me up, and remind me that You’re right there waiting for me… on the water… with Your hand stretched out… ready to catch me if I should fall. Take away these feelings of fear and timidity.

Thank you – that Heaven is a real place – where my dad actually is. Though I have to remind myself that today is my birthday…. July 2 is my dads birthday now. When he entered into heaven – to an eternal celebration that is far better than I could ever imagine.

Help me to celebrate that you granted ME life, for a purpose – and I can feel okay celebrating that – and enjoying that.

Thank you for your truth- and for speaking so clearly to me today.

I will call upon your name…
and keep my eyes above the waves…
My soul will rest in your embrace…
I am Yours… and You are mine…

Teaching your kids about Christmas

Dec 3, 2016

These days, Christmas can be kind of confusing for a Christian kiddo today in America. We try to teach our kids about the REAL meaning of Christmas which is Christ Jesus given to us by a great and wonderful God, but many times that gets buried under a pile of Santa Claus, Saint Nicolas, Elf on the Shelf, and Christmas trees.

In our family we celebrate Saint Nicolas Day. Call it the old Catholic in me, this was and still is one of my very favorite traditions. Each year now Kiki puts out her own boot and hopes for lots of goodies on December 6 when she wakes up.

So I got to thinking… perhaps I aught to really teach her about Christmas this year and the blending of our favorite traditions. Afterall it can get really really confusing, even for adults! I recently (and wrongly) just told some friends that Santa Claus has nothing to do with the Christian Holiday (completely forgetting my Catholic Elementary Education) and that he was a made up guy for Pagans! YIKES!

But as my friend pointed out to me that oh yes Santa is very much tied to Christianity, I apologized and admitted I was wrong.

Well lucky for me, and Kiki (so I don’t go botching that up too) the super cool folks over at What’s in the Bible already had this video’d for me, which is awesome because Kiki absolutely LOVES these guys. Since I’m already doing an on-going blog series on the Jesse Tree – I’ve mashed all of these videos together in one.

Pull up a mug of hot cocoa and marshmallows, and enjoy!